Thursday, March 15, 2012

We've covered a pretty good pile of 80-pagers, and it's pretty rare to find one that is an actual 80-page story. On the other hand, it's rare to find an anthology book that actually was an anthology book, like today's: Adventure Comics 80-Page Giant #1, featuring stories from John Byrne, Tom Peyer, Chuck Dixon, and more; with art by Phil Winslade, Rick Burchett, Kevin O'Neill, and more.

Actually, Adventure Comics wasn't always an anthology, but I read it when it was a digest, mostly featuring Legion of Super-Heroes, the Spectre, and Challengers of the Unknown reprints. Heck, those digests probably were my introduction to those characters. While the Legion appears in this 80-pager, it's mostly for characters that appeared in Adventure's heyday: Wonder Woman, Green Arrow, Supergirl, and Superboy.

But the best story in this one is Tom Peyer and Kevin O'Neill's missive from the Bizarro World, "Bizarro Must Think!" Bizarro #1 brings his private, secret journal to a scientist so he can broadcast it to the whole universe. The imperfect duplicate tells about when Superman tried to improve the Bizarro World, which led to the Bizarro Code. It's a funny story, but more than a little sad.